A PROFESSIONAL shoplifting gang opened a Pandora’s box of trouble when they snatched expensive jewels from a Middlesbrough store.

The trio, who stole jewellery worth £20,000 from three Pandora outlets in the space of two hours have now been jailed.

As part of its thieving spree, the gang pinched two bracelets worth nearly £6,000 from a Middlesbrough shop.

Newcastle Crown Court heard Martin Waite, Patrick Skeels and Gary Bakes were an organised team who had struck up and down the country.

In the space of 120 minutes they had plundered shops in Middlesbrough, Newcastle and Sunderland.

Judge Simon Hickey, jailing the trio, said: “This is high-value property. You are professional shoplifters and you have stolen in the past in the South and have now moved north where you are not known.”

The three men travelled up to the North-east from Hampshire in February this year.

On February 12, at around 11.30am, they went to the Pandora shop in Eldon Square, Newcastle and stole a 14-carat gold bracelet with charms on it, worth £6,535.

They used a device to unlock a cabinet while one of them blocked the view.

By 12.30pm they arrived, without Waite, at a Sunderland shopping centre and used the same tactics as before, to steal two bracelets worth £7,000. And by 1.30pm they pinched two bracelets, worth nearly £6,000, from a Middlesbrough Pandora shop.

None of the jewellery has been recovered and the trio were only arrested when Skeels and Waite were caught raiding a Pandora shop in the South.

Christopher Knox, prosecuting, said: “We say this was a planned and well-equipped operation and they achieved the theft of a substantial amount of material.”